


Meeting Juelie

by Adaney



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Other, POV Original Character, POV Original Non-Binary Character, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 07:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20991458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adaney/pseuds/Adaney
Summary: "Are we friends?" It's simultaneously the worst and best question you could have asked and of course you had to ask it now.





	Meeting Juelie

**Author's Note:**

> Created: May 12, 2017
> 
> I remembered going for some sort of NCIS-esque cold open with this one.

"It's a murder."  
  
"Like, death?"   
  
"No, like the winged beasts that flap about in the air. Feathered, black plumage with beaks orange-yellow like nails." There isn't any bite to your explanation or lack of avian classification.   
  
"Crows," you repeat. Your bones are weary and your shoes uncharacteristically heavy in the way they can only be when you've been working too long. You clear your throat to continue and your voice is echoed by a shrill caw. "The body has been here long enough for them to get a bit of meat in their beaks, and I can't say I blame them."   
  
You're looking at another bare-bones, countryside crime for the record, and with the smashed teeth of your <John Doe> and the lack of a face you're probably going to have to call this one quits or haul it in. 

* * *

Of course, you weren't acquainted with Juelie then, who'd been called in on your case in what you assume to be some attempt at efficient bureaucracy. The first thing you noticed was her height, tense posture, and the neutrality of her face. You wouldn't have expected her to be capable of laughter back then, called to fix as many people's messes as she was. She did her job, provided her professional opinion, and on occasion (and by that you mean more often than expected) provided more assistance than was strictly necessary. Her skills were questionable in origin but not in execution, and you made it your business not to pry. You suppose this is why you got along as well as you did.

* * *

You remember you didn't get along with Juelie so great when you were ribbing her at work. She was a few sweeps and a head or two taller than you, and she reminded you of a willow with her gangly limbs and slightly hunched appearance. You learned later that the curvature of her spine was work related rather than the fault of genetics, and you kept your mouth shut once you realized how much larger she was in a room when she stood up straight. You're lucky she found you strangely endearing by trying to start some kind of camaraderie rather than the nuisance you know you must have been. 

* * *

You think the first time she spoke to you of her own accord was over a stack a paperwork as thick as your hand was wide. "It's a wonder," she said while depositing the stack on your desk like the waste of ink and foliage it was, "that they always give those that are competent work that wastes their talent." You thought she was speaking in generalities when she left, hair flowing behind her on her way out the door. You didn't realize until hours into your own shift that she was talking about you, and you don't know if it's such a bad thing that you agree with her.

* * *

That was probably where your problem with her started if you're going to be honest with yourself. You're definitely not flushed for her, and you're so close to pale it's painful--the word friend tastes so foreign in your mouth it's a wonder you have any. She tells you one day over some poor sods corpse that she doesn't have any friends. She's squatted in a patch of gravel, lines slowly growing more permanent in those red splashes of color she calls shoes, glasses pressing indentations into the bridge of her nose she'll complain about later.   
  
You don't agree with her assessment, and for the first time since you met her you've finally found something to disagree about. The feeling that gives you is an odd, indecipherable swirl in the pit of your stomach that gives you serious pause to the words about to come out of your mouth. You make it your business to pry.

* * *

You like to think you've come better acquainted with Juelie over the perigees, but she continues to shock you with her quiet dedication to simply being herself. She doesn't have the air about her you'd expect from someone of her blood, and gods it took you far too long to get the lowdown on what in hells her blood was. 

You were working over some stiff together when she'd rolled up her starched white sleeves in preparation for a close examination. She never wore short sleeves, and in a moment you got all you needed to know about why. She wasn't thin as you'd initially thought, for one. You knew she was strong before you got a glimpse of the hell that was her left arm, and the stuttering click that left your throat in an expression of anxiety only gets you the slightest glance from the corner of Juelie’s eye. 

The gal has scars twisting up her arm something wicked, and on her wrist is the puckered, purplish, bruising shape of what to you is clearly a bite mark. The edges are lined like teeth and the skin raised like newly healed tissue, and you avert your eyes before she catches you staring. You kind of fucking hate her for having so much going on in her life that you don't know about, but to have gone through all that without bragging?

She was smarter than you gave her credit for. 

* * *

You think it's been almost a sweep of you knowing her when you finally pop the question. You're sitting on the corner of your desk with your mug in your hand and she's leaning against the threshold of your door like she isn't almost too tall for it, head ducked out of necessity and to savor the drink pressed to her lips. 

“Yseone,” you clear your throat, suddenly struck with a sense of uncertainty. 

She pauses and raises her eyes to meet yours, back straightening and mug lowering as she directs on you her full attention. You feel small and monumentally stupid all at once until she opens her mouth to address you, and you remember the troll you're talking to doesn't have the fangs to tear open your throat. You're surprisingly focused on how flat her teeth are. 

“Yes?” She doesn't sound as if she's nervous about being asked something out of the blue. You're too busy fussing with your collar to think too much about her reaction.

* * *

You learned about her moirail a time after she'd become a regular fixture at your desk, the same mug in her fingers filled with your coffee just how you liked it. You didn't know how she'd figured that part out, and she didn't tell you when you asked. 

* * *

“Are we friends?”

“Funny,” she smiles. “I was just asking myself the same thing.” 

You're shocked when she laughs, her eyes lighting up with mirth that's as alien to you as the brightness of her face or the fact she has the ability to _ smile _. You hide your own smile behind your mug and a steady stream of break-room coffee, pleased.


End file.
